{"id":1271,"date":"2014-10-02T19:15:19","date_gmt":"2014-10-03T03:15:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scotthyoung.com\/members\/?page_id=1271"},"modified":"2014-10-02T19:15:19","modified_gmt":"2014-10-03T03:15:19","slug":"a-3-step-technique-to-remember-anything-permanently","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/members\/?page_id=1271","title":{"rendered":"A 3-step technique to remember anything permanently"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the first day of this bootcamp, I told you that being unable to focus was the number one problem faced by readers here. Number two? Difficulty retaining information.<\/p>\n

Today I\u2019m going to offer a three-step process to remember anything permanently. This strategy can apply to a wide range of subjects\u2013I used it in both the MIT Challenge and my language learning project. Second, the steps involved are backed by scientific research as being effective components to learning better.<\/p>\n

\u2014-<\/p>\n

The three steps are quite simple, but they\u2019re so important that I\u2019m splitting this lesson into two parts. Those steps are:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Practice.<\/li>\n
  2. Connect.<\/li>\n
  3. Distribute.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Practice, you already know from yesterday. In order to remember information it needs to be learned actively, meaning you quiz yourself without looking at the answers.<\/p>\n

    Connect, which I\u2019ll be covering today, is the special sauce. There are many techniques here\u2013too many to cover in one email\u2013but the goal is to transform the information so that it leverages the more powerful memory tools of the brain. I\u2019ll briefly cover some of the main tools in this email, although there\u2019s many more that we teach in Learning on Steroids.<\/p>\n

    Distribute refers to spacing out your exposure to an idea. This was, along with practice testing, listed as one of the two most effective methods for learningin this study<\/a>. Tomorrow I\u2019ll be talking about this in more detail, and how you can leverage it as a system to remember anything permanently.<\/p>\n

    \u2014-<\/p>\n

    There are many techniques for connecting, but they all share one property. They are an attempt to link the information you want to learn, with a format which the brain can more easily process and remember.<\/p>\n

    Not all ideas are remembered equally. The brain has systems for storing certain types of information, such as stories, images and places, quite effectively. These systems were essential in our ancestral environment, where getting lost and remembering friend from foe were more important survival tasks than solving differential equations.<\/p>\n

    Much of the information we struggle to remember is precisely because it doesn\u2019t fit into these excellent memory systems. Abstract ideas, isolated facts, definitions, terminology and trivia rarely use these systems, and so are quickly forgotten.<\/p>\n

    Connect, the second step of our three-part process, is an attempt to translate information into stories, pictures, analogies and examples that the brain can easily remember.<\/p>\n

    \u2014-<\/p>\n

    There are many ways this can be achieved, and professional mnemonicists have developed hundreds of specialized tools for particular memory tasks. Here are some of the main ones:<\/p>\n

    Visualization<\/em> \u2013 Here you try to translate the idea to a picture. Programming variables become colorful jars. Determinants become bounding volumes of parallelepipeds.<\/p>\n

    Examples<\/em> \u2013 Take the general and make it specific. In economics, the substitution effect is when you rent a movie, instead of going to the opera, because the price of tickets rises. The income effect is when you go to the opera less because rent is so expensive.<\/p>\n

    Image Association<\/em> \u2013 Link two images mentally to form a chain. Need to remember that chavirer<\/em> means, to capsize, in French? Turn the sound into an image: chavirer<\/em> becomes \u201cshave ear\u201d. Then blend it in a ridiculous way with an image of a boat capsizing. A giant bearded ear, rowing a boat, flips over while trying to shave itself. Next time you think of capsize, you remember the picture and the words.<\/p>\n

    Analogy<\/em> \u2013 Link the deep structure of the two ideas. Voltage is to electromagnetism, like height is to gravity. Then imagine a circuit where the water flow is current, the wires are pipes and the height of the pipes is the voltage. Batteries pump water up to higher pipes, resistors bottleneck the water flowing back down.<\/p>\n

    Anthropomorphization<\/em> \u2013 Turn inanimate objects into characters. The noble gases don\u2019t like to interact with the commoner metals on the periodic table because they already have everything they need. Halogens are just shy of a full set, so are eager to steal electrons from anyone who passes by.<\/p>\n

    Diagramming<\/em> \u2013 Draw the relationships of the idea out on paper. Assets, liabilities and equities form two sides of a scale, with everything resting on both halves linked to a twin on the other side.<\/p>\n

    This is just a short list. We cover each of these in a lot more detail in Learning on Steroids, including others such as mental highways, pegging, the link method, deep linking, memory palace and storytelling.<\/p>\n

    \u2014-<\/p>\n

    Connection is a powerful tool, but it can also be misapplied. Particularly if it\u2019s used as a direct replacement for practice.<\/p>\n

    In my own learning, I use connection in two ways, which helps me learn better.<\/p>\n

    First, I use it spontaneously whenever I\u2019m learning. This is a habit cultivated with years of practice of automatically trying to take information and connect it to images, examples and things I already understand.<\/p>\n

    However, as a skill, this takes some time to develop spontaneously and it often fails when facing very hard material. The easier you find material conceptually, the easier this step will be, so it\u2019s often not possible to spontaneously create links when you\u2019re just barely following along.<\/p>\n

    Here it\u2019s important to apply these methods deliberately, yet selectively. Don\u2019t set aside hours of your day to apply it on every idea you encounter. You\u2019ll run out of time and likely won\u2019t remember the information as well as if you had just done practice testing alone.<\/p>\n

    Instead, using your practice testing as a guide for when to set aside time to use this technique. Here are some ways I\u2019ve used this:<\/p>\n